Once the crowd cleared out, the captain put his arms around the final two stragglers, Big Robby and Colleen. “Let’s give Loverboy a minute and take you two for some coffee.”

The door closed behind them, and we were alone.

The rookie tugged at me to sit beside him. “Get down here.”

I let his bedrail down and sat. “They wouldn’t let me in to see you,” I said. “But I snuck in anyway.”

“I thought I dreamed that,” he said.

“No. It was real.”

I didn’t even realize my face was covered in tears until the rookie reached up to brush them off.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said, and my voice was so shaky, the words trembled, too.

“Thank you for not letting me die,” Owen said.

“Thank you for not dying.”

“Thank you for agreeing to marry me.”

“Thank you for asking.”

“If I could lean forward and kiss you some more right now, I would.”

I smiled. “I’d kiss you back.”

He nodded. “But I can’t. You know—because of the ribs.”

“I get it,” I said.

“So if you want to get kissed,” he went on, eyeing me, “you have to do all the work yourself.”

I leaned in. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.

“But you do want to kiss me.”

“I really, truly do.”

“Be careful, then,” he said.

So I kissed him. Carefully. Supporting my weight on one arm, and resting the palm of my other hand against the contour of his unshaven neck. I could feel his pulse, simple and steady, and I let myself feel so grateful—so unabashedly grateful—that it was there.

When I pulled back to take in the sight of him, he said, “Don’t stop.”

“The captain says I have to go easy on you.”

“Don’t go easy on me.”

“I should probably let you rest.”

“Don’t let me rest.”

“I should probably go.”

“Definitely don’t go,” he said.

He looked tired, as if even just a little bit of flirting and kissing was enough to knock him out. But I didn’t want to go. Instead, I shifted to lie beside him in that skinny little bed, slow and careful not to hurt him anywhere, nestled between him and the railing.

When I finally got settled, my head against his shoulder, as if it were the most natural possible next step in the conversation, Owen said, “We should do it today.”

I lifted up my elbow. “Do what?”

He smiled and met my eyes. “Get married.”

“Here? In the hospital?”

“I’m sure they’ve got a chaplain or something.”

“No,” I said.

He met my eyes. “No, you won’t marry me?”

“No, I won’t marry you today. In a hospital.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too many good things at once. I want to keep something to look forward to.”

He smiled, lay back against the pillow, and closed his eyes. I laid my head beside him. I thought he was almost asleep when he said, “Trust me. You have so much to look forward to.”

“I agree,” I said.

But anything could happen. I knew that, too.

I knew too much about life to pretend that it wasn’t half tragedy. We lose the people we love. We disappoint each other. We misunderstand. We get lost and lonely and angry.

But right now, in this moment, we were okay.

Better than okay.

My mom was in her garden with plans to see Josie for lunch and a newly repaired kitchen window. The guys from the firehouse were out in the waiting room telling bawdy jokes. DeStasio was getting a second chance to pull himself together. Big Robby and Colleen were sipping a couple of hard-earned coffees. I had my job back—if I chose to take it.

And the rookie was alive. And I was next to him, holding his hand, feeling his chest rise and fall like the most amazing miracle in all of time. I’d take it. I wouldn’t complain.

I’d forgiven us all, and I’d do it again.

Maybe everybody was just foolish and doomed. Maybe nobody got a happy ending in the end. Maybe all happiness could ever hope to be was a tiny interruption from sorrow.

But there was no denying what this was. A genuine, blissful moment of joy.

It couldn’t last, but that’s what made it matter.

And that just had to be enough.

Epilogue

I NEVER MADE it back to Texas.

But I did see my crew from Austin again, a year later, when the rookie and I got married in Rockport on a warm summer evening at sunset. The whole gang drove up from Texas in a caravan of pickup trucks after agreeing to be my bridesmaids. Hernandez vied for position as maid of honor, but Josie beat him out.

Josie made my wedding dress, too. As thin as a slip, but with lots of ruffles. Her mystery husband wound up holding their squirmy baby during the ceremony while she held my bouquet. Hernandez talked his cousin into driving his shiny Airstream taco truck across the country to cater the reception for us—so he wound up in a position of honor, too. Cousin of Taco Truck Guy. He wanted us to note it in the program.

But we didn’t.

He brought us Austin’s new firefighter calendar as a wedding present.

Our crew from Lillian served as the rookie’s groomsmen, and all his sisters stood up with him, too. We had a parade of little flower children. And we couldn’t decide between Captain Murphy from Lillian and Captain Harris from Austin to officiate, so we asked them both, and they both got certified, and they took turns.

What can I say? When it came time for us to stand up and make our vows to each other, we had a lot of great people standing with us.

My dad and Carol flew in for the wedding, and my mom and dad gave me away together. My mom wore a white silk eye patch that Josie made her with remnants from my dress.

Later, my mom told me that she’d found a moment to take my father aside and apologize to him. For leaving him, of course, but also for the way that she’d left him—with so many questions so unanswered for so long. “You know that I never cheated on you, right?” she’d asked him, leaning in to study his eyes.

But he hadn’t known. All that time, he’d thought she must have cheated. For years and years, he’d just assumed that she’d betrayed him as well as abandoned him

“No,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it. “You were abandoned. But not betrayed.” Then she shook her head and looked out at the ocean. “Not that it makes a difference now, really.”

“It does make a difference,” my dad told her, and he squeezed her hand back. It didn’t change the past, of course, but it mattered.

Colleen and Big Robby were there, of course, and the rookie’s cousin Alex bartended for free and handed out condoms on the sly. I invited the ICU nurse who’d sneaked me in, and I’m pretty sure the two of them hooked up.

Did we invite DeStasio?

We did.

His attitude toward me improved quite a bit after I saved his life.

And mine improved toward him after he got out of rehab, showed up at my place to sincerely apologize, with actual tears of regret, and made a pledge to spend his retirement years volunteering at the local women’s shelter as a way of atoning for his mistakes.